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Church of St. John the Divine
May 22, 2011
"A benevolent god, to whom musicians should offer a prayer before setting to work so that they may be preserved from mediocrity."
Most musicians will not need to be told that Claude Debussy was referring to Johann Sebastian Bach; nor is he the only composer to have referred to Bach in quasi-religious terms. For many, perhaps most, musicians there is Bach - and there is everyone else.
And yet, for some reason, this near-idolatry is not common among the greater music-loving public.
Perhaps if there were more concerts like Sunday's by the Victoria Bach Ensemble, this would cease to be the case. For an event whose publicity seems to have been mostly "under the radar", the evening was gratifyingly well attending and the response was surely all the musicians could have wished for.
Let us admit straight away that the very opening of the first work on offer - the chorale "Christ lag in Todesbanden" from the cantata BWV4 - suffered from a certain instability, but let us also immediately remark that, from around the second or third bar, ensemble and intonation were back on firm ground, where they remained for the remainder of the programme.
Trumpeter David Barrs - one of the two founding fathers of the VBE - also apparently likes to live dangerously and this arrangement of what was originally vocal music (which, he later told me, essentially has to be played with a single breath) gave him ample opportunity so to do. However, aside from an almost token insecurity on the first few notes, all was sweetness and light.
For those of us whose first hearings of the Bach orchestral suites was in "big band" modern instrument recordings (Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, anyone?) the performance of the second suite - whose final Badinerie, is probably the best-known movement from any of the suites, with the possible exception of the "Air on the G string" - this performance, with one instrument to a part, could easily have sounded somewhat anaemic.
The fact that it did not, is testament to the fine playing, both individually and collectively. Aside from the abrupt and slightly jarring decelerando from the first to the second Bourrée, it was also a performance which tripped merrily along and provided the perfect foil to those who claim that Bach is "too clinical" for their taste.
And while Lanny Pollet's Badinerie did not quite match the world-record-shattering tempo of the last time I heard him play it, it would probably have taken a stopwatch or photo-finish to distinguished between the two. Marvellous.
The violin and keyboard sonatas are not as frequently heard as the solo sonatas and partitas; listening to Pablo Diemecke and Michael Drislane (on the piano) performing the adagio from the E major sonata, one could not help but wonder why. Beautiful, tranquil music, beautifully played.
Drislane remained at the piano (he used the harpsichord solely for continuo playing) for the first keyboard concerto BWV 1052. This is one of Bach's most dramatic instrumental works (Busoni made a wonderful version in which the accompaniment is unchanged, but the solo part is expanded to Brahmsian proportions) and the performance, from the striding confidence of its opening to the almost dizzying pace of the finale, gripped the attention like the Ancient Mariner's wedding guest.
The acoustic was not ideal for the combination of piano and single strings, with the reverberence of the former sometimes masking the latter, but this was a minor defect to set beside the manifold qualities: Drislane's crisp, dexterous playing, the spirited accompaniment and a slow movement which was even more enigmatic and misterioso than usual.
Even the annoyingly loud beeping for attention from the unattended camcorder in the nave about three feet from me failed to detract overmuch from my enjoyment.
There are times - usually when I am listening to it - when I am convinced that The Art of Fugue may well be the greatest single composition in musical history.
Sadly, for many people, this represents that so-called clinical side of Bach; certainly, a dutiful but dour performance is going to win no new friends for the music.
But 'twas not ever thus: my own introduction to the music - almost half a century ago - was The Swingle Singers' exuberant recording of Contrapunctus IX and it was, to my delight, with this fugue that Michael Drislane's arrangement of four extracts from the work concluded.
There were a few occasions when I felt that the arrangement favoured the bass voice a little too much (cello, doublebass and harpsichord pitted against two violins and viola playing the other three lines), but that was transient and the abiding impression was of a well thought out transcription, very well played, from the profundity of the first fugue to the delightful, almost improvisatory feel of number nine. And can anyone fail to have been thrilled when Mieka Michaux's viola boldly stated the main theme of the entire work against the ebullience of the other instruments?
The remainder of the programme added the human voice to the proceedings.
First, after a sparkling instrumental introduction, came soprano Eve Daniell's spirited and buoyant performance of the aria "Seid beglückt" from the cantata BWV210. In the more florid vocal passagework she coped extremely well with a very swift tempo.
Finally, we heard three movements from the cantata "Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein". Andrew Buckley impressed in the bouncy opening aria-with-embedded-recitative; and Tamara Rusque and Josh Lovell were charming in the delightful duet with violin obbligato which followed.
But for me, and I am sure for many, it was the quite lovely final chorale, featuring all four soloists and the entire ensemble, which set the seal on a most enjoyable evening.
As Peter Gammond once remarked, there is really only one appropriate response to this composer: "Ah...Bach!"
Sunday's audience could tell you why.
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